The present invention relates to a side vehicle-body structure of a vehicle which transmits and disperses a collision load applied to a center pillar from the vehicle side, for example, to a roof rail.
Conventionally, it has been an issue from viewpoints of secure protection of passengers in a vehicle compartment how to properly restrain a center pillar from coming into the vehicle compartment when another vehicle collides with a vehicle side portion or the vehicle side portion hits against an obstacle in a side vehicle-body structure of a vehicle comprising a pair of right-and-left roof rails extending in a vehicle longitudinal direction at an upper portion of a vehicle body, a roof reinforcement connecting the roof rails in a vehicle width direction, a pair of right-and-left side sills extending in the vehicle longitudinal direction at a lower portion of the vehicle body, and a center pillar connecting each of the roof rails and each of the side sills. Various structures to solve this issue have been proposed up to now.
A vehicle-body upper structure (corresponding to the side vehicle-body structure according to the present application) disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2009-57032, for example, shows a structure in which a reinforcing pipe having a specified length is joined inside and along a roof side rail. According to this vehicle-body upper structure disclosed in the patent document, the reinforcing pipe restrains the roof side rail from bending toward the inside of a vehicle compartment when a collision load is applied to a center pillar, and also the collision load is transmitted and dispersed to a roof arch (corresponding to a roof reinforcement according to the present application), so that the center pillar is restrained from coming into the vehicle compartment.
The above-described vehicle-body upper structure disclosed in the patent document, however, has a problem in that the number of components, such as the reinforcing pipe and parts for joining and fixing the reinforcing pipe to the roof side rail, may improperly increase, so that the weight of the entire vehicle may become heavier.